ROLI Experiments: Can you learn piano if the teacher can’t see your hands?

We pitted a real piano teacher against ROLI Piano System and our new AI Music Coach — and we didn’t exactly play fair.

ROLI Team

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10 March 2026

Thanks to Airwave, ROLI Learn is the only piano-learning app that can see, as well as hear, what and how you play. We wanted to find out how much that really matters and what it means for the effectiveness of other apps, so we called Liz. She’s a real piano teacher, and a good one to boot; she has years of experience successfully teaching real students to play real pianos — but she’s never faced a challenge quite like this one.

We set up a simple, if slightly unfair test: Could Liz teach our beginners to play over the phone, with no way of seeing them, their hands, or the piano itself? As a comparison, we also had them all learn with our new AI Music Coach, which uses Airwave and its built-in infrared cameras to see your hands in incredible detail, tracking all 27 joints in each hand, in 3D space, and at 90 frames per second. Best of luck, Liz!

Of course, nothing replaces a great teacher sitting beside you, watching your hands and guiding you in real time. But most of us don’t have a teacher in the room every time we practice. If you’re learning from home, or looking for feedback between lessons, having technology that can actually see what you’re doing, not just hear it, makes all the difference.

Start your piano learning journey the right way

ROLI Piano System is designed to get you playing your favorite songs from day one. With glowing keys to guide your way, an ever-growing library of hits to choose from, and an AI Music Coach that can see your every move and talk to you, it’s the fast, fun way to learn piano from home.

Discover the ROLI Piano System

Learn more about AI Music Coach

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